Writer

Category Archives: Photography

The year has rocked this world to its roots.
What if for one day each being put down
their burdens, their words of hate, their inhumanity
and breathed in the presence?
Stopped fighting for history, for fears, hopes, dreams
and stood facing the morning sun
letting the warmth of the moment
and the next, the next, accumulate like dust at their feet
Listened instead of spoke, acknowledged truth,
embraced silence.

What if for one day each being acknowledged the fear
and let it go? Suspended beliefs
opened their arms, drew strength
through earth, grass, rock, sand
Found the sparrow singing from a lone bush
the small heart-shaped cloud
Felt the currents of air wash over them, mingle
with the breath, and let the seams unravel
borders blend, walls dissolve
and be
one.

Today, for the first time, I celebrated Independence Day as an American citizen. A week ago, I stood in a large reception room along with a hundred and seventy-two others and our families, representing forty-seven nations, and we took an oath of allegiance to this country.

For me, it had been a long time coming. Twenty-seven years to be exact. The majority of us come looking for a better quality of life than we could have expected if we’d stayed in our country of birth. Some cannot wait to shed the shackles of an oppressive government, or a miserable life of poverty and violence. I was one of the lucky ones. Leaving Dublin in the late 1980’s, I became part of the brain-drain—college graduates looking for challenging job opportunities that were not available in a depressed economy. The path across the Atlantic was a well-worn one.

But unlike many immigrants, my family had no desire to follow me. Instead, I make the pilgrimage home a couple of times a year. And part of me remains firmly rooted in Ireland.

It’s always irked me that although I’ve long been active in my community, and paid taxes for decades, I could not vote, not even on local issues. The importance of this privilege was brought home to me when my oldest children turned eighteen and took on the lifelong responsibility. With all the international political turbulence, the tenets of a democracy are all the more important to uphold. I needed to show my children that I respect their country of birth and embrace the extraordinary document on which it was founded.

As a family we’ve never been big on fireworks and barbecues. So I found myself pondering how I should celebrate this day, and what being an American really means to me. The USCIS calls the process of becoming a citizen a naturalization process. Adapting to a way of life, and adopting a country’s social mores takes time. But becoming enmeshed in a landscape, taking ownership of a space and calling it home is a more subtle and binding tie.

This morning, finding the patch of sunlight waiting for me on the bench at the top of the garden, I understood that I have found my natural place in this landscape. Season by season, I’ve raised my family, made friends, planted a garden, put down roots. I belong. And what better way to celebrate than to sit there and enjoy the bounty of this amazing country.

Mist lying in the deep valleys,
sunrise on white windmills, fresh cool air
blowing down from Canada after the rain.
Heard the mate-seeking brag of the rufous sided towhee
before I spotted him posing at the top of the thicket.

On my walk home, I passed a pair of teenage girls
boarding the school bus, talking animatedly
oblivious to the morning chill
in their summer shorts and tiny tops.

A kid pulled out right behind the bus in a banged up Toyota.
He grasped the wheel at ten and two,
wearing a frown of concentration and a baseball cap pulled low.
His studied air made me think he had timed it just so!
Because who wants to be stuck behind a school bus?
Except a guy with a shiny new driver’s license and a second hand car.

Did he hope that every time the bus wheezed to a stop
the girls would turn in the back seat and sneak glances at him,
gazing casually off into the distance,
and note the slight bob of his head keeping time
with the rock tune playing loud through his out-sized speakers?

Perhaps he dreamed of catching a small finger ripple from the redhead,
a half wave that could be turned into a hair flick if not reciprocated.
Did he hesitate for a second – who me?
Before realizing that yes, there was no one else around,
so that yes, that slight dimple in the cheek and finger flutter
must be for him. And yes, I imagined the slow creeping grin
and the deep hollow of lust and loneliness in his gut
flooding with happiness.

In late March I had the great pleasure of staying in a cottage on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, California. Each day I hiked and explored with my family. Having never spent time in a desert before, the landscape was a totally new environment for me. What made it even more amazing was that we had arrived at the cusp of winter and spring.

Everywhere I looked I could see new life bursting out of seemingly dead plants and shrubs. It was breathtaking to watch the full moon sink behind the snow caps of the San Bernadino mountains as the sun rose, blushing the mountains of the park. My ears soon tuned in to the noisy cactus wren that sang from the top of a telephone pole and the courting of white winged doves. Each morning I watched for the Anna’s humming bird that visited the new blooms of the manzanita tree. My son and I would visit the wash behind the cottage to examine the footprints in the sand–ground squirrel, jack rabbit, lizard. We learned the names of the many cacti in our yard as they came into flower. And chasing him up and over the huge golden granite boulders in the park, I felt like a little kid all over again.

For a moment she sits and basks
black coat a magnet for a patch of sunlight
The muffled thrum of her own heartbeat—
sole companion under the snow—
quickens now with the sap pulsing through green wood
and the call of the cardinal from the top of the maple

She shakes her head, sending dust flying
swats away the young nuzzling for a teat
sways to all fours and sets off
pushing through briars
burrs catching in her winter fur
April wind cutting a ruff around her neck